Teera does not tell him that she came a good bit earlier than planned, hoping that by walking around the riverfront she would remember more of the scene with her parents that had flashed across her mind several days ago when she was with Narunn at his apartment. Instead she blurts out—“I think the boy has cancer! Or something grave like that. He just has that look, like he’s never going to get better, and he knows it, and his mother knows it. I think they’re important, powerful people. Certainly very wealthy.” Confusion furrows her brow. “But they seemed utterly at the mercy of fortune, or in this case, misfortune. Oun anet,” she adds guiltily.
Narunn inclines his head a bit, looks at her, smiles. “You feel for everyone.”
“Shouldn’t I?” she murmurs, somewhat to herself, her heart pulled in a conflict of empathy. “Is it wrong?”
“Why?—Because they are rich?”
“I don’t know.”
“In a place like this,” Narunn says, surreptitiously hooking his little finger into hers, “illness seems the only constant democracy. It affects everyone the same way. And in the absence of reason—when we don’t know how or why one is afflicted, or what’s the cure—compassion is the only appropriate response.”
They stand now side by side, their gazes on a dinner-cruise boat gliding downstream, his small finger swinging hers. She’s been careful not to touch him in public, conscious of tradition, how they’d be perceived. Yet, she can’t look at him without feeling a surge of desire, this ever-growing belief that she is meant to love him, he who shares her history, who understands her loss and yet carries his wisdom with such levity that his nearness makes her feel she can rise above any sorrow.
“Are you sure you’re a doctor, and not a monk?” she says after a moment, keeping a straight face, her gaze still on the water.
“I told you I was an impostor.” He takes full hold of her hand and pulls her toward the side entrance of the pavilion, as if suddenly forgetting their age, the restraint they’ve tried so hard to maintain. “Come—let’s get some juice!”
They cross the street to a row of carts selling fruits and drinks at the corner of the grassy park directly opposite the Royal Palace. All the vendors seem to know Narunn, greeting him with warmth and affection. “Ah, we thought you’d given up on the rest of us and joined the sangha for good.” He is their brother, their nephew, their son. “Can’t you see he’s married now?” Eyes wide, Teera turns to Narunn, expecting him to correct their mistaken assumption, and when he doesn’t, looking as mischievous as they are, she reddens.
Noticing this, the coconut vendor, with limbs as sinewy and brown as coconut trunks, intercepts: “Who will you make rich today?” Narunn chuckles. “I believe you are the lucky man, uncle. Two coconuts, please.” He looks to Teera for confirmation; she nods, grateful for the change of subject. The vendor pulls out the smallest pair hidden beneath a pile of young green fruits, expertly slices the tops off with his cleaver, plunges a fat straw inside each, and hands them to Teera and Narunn. “Dwarf coconuts, you remember?” he says, sensing Teera’s forgetfulness, her time away from this land, which they all seem to have guessed. “The last two from my tree this season.” Teera takes a sip, eyebrow raised when the intensity of the sweetness hits her. She nods. Yes, I remember now. And just as she thinks this, she recalls a similar scene from childhood of her drinking juice from a banana-leaf cone on a busy street corner. Something citrusy tickles her nostrils. Is it an actual orange she smells? Or a memory? She takes another sip from the coconut. Waits . . . but nothing.
Narunn tries to pay, but the vendor won’t hear of it. “My treat today,” he says, with a toothless grin to Teera. “See, you’ve brought me luck already,” Narunn tells her.
They thank the coconut vendor, and as they turn to leave, a young man in a wooden wheelchair rolls toward them. “Vichet!” Narunn greets. “How are you?—Would you like a coconut?—Or some other fruits, perhaps?” The young man shakes his head, laughing, his eyes soulful, melancholy, despite his youth and outward cheerfulness. “Thank you, but I just want to say hello to your wife.” Teera opens her mouth to correct him, but Narunn exclaims, “It has been a while since we last saw each other!” He turns to Teera, gesturing at the young man’s collection of grasshoppers made from woven palm leaves bobbing on sticks as thin as wires. “Oun, Vichet is an excellent craftsman. You can give him straw and he’ll turn it into something wonderful.” The young man blushes and, taking a grasshopper from the bamboo column tied to the front of his wheelchair, gives it to Teera. “May I pay for this?” she asks. Vichet shakes his head—“That one is not for sale.” Their gazes meet for a second, and then he looks away, seeming suddenly conscious of the short stumps that are left of his legs. “Vichet works for an organization that trains the disabled to make traditional handicrafts,” Narunn explains, obviously proud. “His grasshoppers are quite popular among tourists. Perfect traveling companions. The grasshoppers, I mean. Not the tourists.”
“Your wife is lovely,” Vichet murmurs, stealing a glance at Teera.
“You flirt!” Narunn slaps him on the shoulder, and to her says, “I’d better take you away before this boy breaks your heart, and mine.” Behind them the other vendors laugh, echoing Vichet’s sentiments—“Lovely indeed! No wonder you’ve kept her hidden from us! Bring her back soon, Doctor.”
“Not a chance!” Narunn waves. “Good-bye, everyone!” He guides Teera across the traffic, one hand holding the coconut, the other protectively on the small of her back. They trace a straight line along the pedestrian crossing—which no one respects—giving way to cars and trucks, letting the motorbikes and tuk-tuks and other smaller vehicles weave around them. “You know everybody!” Teera exclaims through the din, the grasshopper bobbing on its stick above her coconut, as if attempting to drink from it.
“That’s what happens when you’ve lived in one place for as long as I have. You could say I was among the original inhabitants, when Phnom Penh was still a ghost city. Everyone knew me as the orphaned bachelor—komlos komprea—and now I’m gray-haired, still living alone, unmarried. Forever an orphan in their eyes. Naturally, they’re all worried, and more than a bit curious.”
They reach the other side of the road. “But you told them you are. Married, I mean.” Teera tries not to show her bafflement, but her voice betrays her. “It seems . . . unnecessary, not to mention untruthful.” The grasshopper nods, agreeing.
“Oun, I’m sorry.” Narunn turns to face her, palm grazing her forearm. “I got carried by the moment. I really am sorry. But I didn’t want to ruin their happiness.” He looks down at his feet. “Nor mine, I suppose.”